James R. Mirick sets the record straight on things he cares about

Fix Election Machine Problems with Manual Procedures?

Sorry to have another post on our national election problems, but here it is anyway.

In my post below, I quote the Diebold folks saying that any “unlikely” problems with their failure- and hacker-prone election machines can be fixed by “just” implementing “appropriate manual controls.” Well, just in time to take care of that fantasy, two independent study groups have issued reports totaling over 500 pages analyzing the performance of the procedures surrounding the May primary election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which used the Diebold machines. There is an article summarizing the findings in Wired.com, and for the stout of heart it links to the original reports issued by the Cuyahoga Election Review Panel and the Election Science Institute (which had been hired by the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners).

Wired says, in part:

“The reports, totaling more than 500 pages, paint a disturbing picture of how million-dollar equipment and security safeguards can quickly be undone by poor product design, improper election procedures and inadequate training. From destroyed ballots and vote totals that didn’t add up to lost equipment and breaches in security protocols, Cuyahoga’s primary is a perfect study in how not to run an election.

“The findings have ominous national implications. Cuyahoga County could play an important role in deciding two races in next week’s election that will help decide which party controls the Senate and House. But one of the reports concluded that problems in the county were so extensive that meaningful improvements likely could not be achieved before that election, or even before the 2008 presidential election.

“Moreover, few voting activists and election experts believe the problems are unique to Cuyahoga.

“‘I suspect that Cuyahoga County may be below average (in terms of how well it ran its election), but if you lift up the rock and look at election administration across the country, you’ll see the same thing elsewhere,’ says David Dill, Stanford computer scientist and founder of VerifiedVoting.org, a proponent of paper-verified elections.

So much for manual controls saving the day, even presumably with Diebold helping them do it right. Note that Cuyahoga County is a relatively large and well-funded county in a relatively wealthy state; we’re not talking East Nowhere, Idaho here.

The Path to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions, as they always say, and here you have it. A powerful corporation smelling profits does a half-brained job cobbling together equipment that it foists off on county boards, who are not exactly equipped to assess either the risk or implement the appropriate mitigating controls. And we, the electorate, are thus fed to the wolves.